‘Ageing’ of cold shortened meat depends on the criterion

Although cold shortened muscles show little decline in shear force during ageing, they do, like unshortened muscles, undergo a drastic reduction in yield point. The differing responses to the two criteria arise from the involvement of different structural elements. Our previous claim, that yield point is highly sensitive to ageing and reflects changes in tenderness, remains valid for unshortened muscles, but is clearly inappropriate to cold shortened samples.